1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to managing collection of royalties for electronically-published material distributed over a computer network.
2. Description of the Related Art
The World Wide Web is the Internet's multimedia information retrieval system. In the Web environment, client machines effect transactions to Web servers using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is a known application protocol providing users access to files (e.g., text, graphics, images, sound, video, etc.) using a standard page description language known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML provides basic document formatting and allows the developer to specify "links" to other servers and files. In the Internet paradigm, a network path to a server is identified by a so-called Uniform Resource Locator (URL) having a special syntax for defining a network connection. Use of an HTML-compatible browser (e.g., Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer) at a client machine involves specification of a link via the URL. In response, the client makes a request to the server (sometimes referred to as a "Web site") identified in the link and, in return, receives in return a document or other object formatted according to HTML.
One of the technical advantages of the World Wide Web is the ease with which digital content (e.g., graphics, sound, video, movies and the like) may be transmitted and distributed to many users. Indeed, copying a digital file is as easy as clicking on a computer mouse. Copyright laws afford a copyright owner the exclusive right to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies, to distribute such copies, and to publicly perform and display the work. Each time a digital file is transferred over the Internet and copied onto a user's memory, the copyright owner's exclusive reproduction right is implicated (and possibly violated). Likewise, transmission of the copyrighted work over the physical wire is tantamount to a distribution. Indeed, in an open system (e.g., a personal computer accessing the World Wide Web through an Internet Service Provider (ISP)), copies of copyrighted materials can undergo unlimited further copying and transmission without the ability of the owner to collect appropriate compensation (e.g., royalties).
Many publishers or other content providers naturally are hesitant to make their copyrighted works available over the Internet due to the ease with which these materials may be copied and widely disseminated without adequate compensation. Presently, Internet commerce remains highly unregulated, and there is no central authority for managing collection and allocation of content provider royalties. Moreover, while publishers and content rights societies and organizations are attempting to address the legal and logistical issues, the art has yet to develop viable technical solutions.
One technique that has been proposed involves wrapping a copyrighted work in a copy protection "environment" to facilitate charging users for use of that information obtained from the Internet or World Wide Web. This approach, called COPINET, links a copyright protection mechanism with a copyright management system, and it is described in Charging, paying and copyright--information access in open networks, Bennett et al., 19th International Online Information Meeting Proceedings, Online Information 1995 pp. 13-23 (Learned Information Europe Ltd.). Publishers in such a system can determine an appropriate level of protection while monitoring use and managing the chain of rights. This approach is also said to provide protection for digital material even after delivery to the user workstation. In particular, copyright material is "wrapped" (by encryption) and "unwrapped" as a result of a specific authorization provided by a trusted subsystem. Material thus is only "visible" to the environment and thus any subsequent user actions, such as "save" or "copy", result in the protected material, or material derived from it, remaining in a protected state when outside the environment.
Although the above-described approach provides some advantages, it does not address the problem of managing the collection of royalties and/or the allocating of such payments to content providers. Moreover, it is not an accepting solution in the context of an open PC architecture such as implemented in the public Internet. It also requires the use of a separate trusted subsystem to generate the authorizations for particular content transfers, which is undesirable.
Other known techniques for managing use of content over the Internet typically involve electronic "wallets" or smart cards. Known prior art systems of this type are illustrated, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,590,197 and 5,613,001. These systems involve complex hardware and encryption schemes, which are expensive and difficult to implement in practice. They are not readily adaptable to provide general royalty payment schemes for Internet content usage.
Thus, there remains a need to provide improved methods and systems for collecting royalties on the Internet as a result of use of copyrighted content.
The present invention solves this important problem.